the anatomy of friendships
by tonberrys-and-kuchikopi
Summary: If this were Captain Planet, James would have the power of heart. Also the power of 'being a bit of a tosser', but that wasn't one of the available monikers. Moments in the friendship of inseparable best friends. Part of the Renascentia-verse.


**Notes:** This work, while it can stand alone, was written as part of the "renascentia" series, and some of the things referenced in it do come up in that story, including dialogue from a few other one-shots.

This one-shot is written by kuchikopi.

* * *

 **the anatomy of friendships**

* * *

 _Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition_

 **December, 1971.**

"Is that - _blood_?"

Look, James Potter was always up for a laugh. It was how he'd always been known round Godric's Hollow, from his batty neighbours to screamy neighbours with wands that must be shoved up their you-know-wheres. He was easy going, easy to please, and not a whole lot bothered him. It was a point of pride. Things didn't get to him.

So the problem with it being a point of pride?

From the moment he'd seen inside Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, something had set him distinctly bothered and he wasn't a fan of it at all. At first, he figured it was just the distinctly scaly decorations and colours. They were bound to get under the skin of even the most fierce of Gryffindors. But it was becoming clear it weren't just that at all, but the whole place gave off a _feeling_. Like he imagined the Shrieking Shack must give off, something a bit haunted, scary but also a bit interesting. The difference was it was probably a bit rude, right, to go calling your best mates house weird looking in the same way you could with a magical curiosity.

The problem was that it _was_ weird, though. He was expecting it to be a bit funny, right, it being the Blacks with that reputation and the way his Dad's eyebrows took on a life of their own when he'd suggested going over there. He just hadn't been expecting it to be _this_ weird. It was like something out of the _Morbid Malificus and his Magical Meridian of Mystery_ comics, except it was really happening and he suddenly had no idea what he was meant to do with himself. There were heads on the walls, portraits as far as he could see, daggers, crystals, old wands, vials of what didn't look like the normal household potions and now he was pretty sure that those were the fancy glasses, cantankers or something, full of blood.

"Oh, yeah," Sirius replied, blinking at them like it was just a normal thing to have blood hanging about in the open.

He had to give it to his mum for double checking if he'd really wanted to go, he did, but pureblood elitists must be _bonkers_.

And in a way, that had been the worst part of it, Sirius, because he didn't seem to realise any of it was strange at all. If anything, he seemed a bit off as well and maybe that was normal but he liked to think that he knew him pretty well, and he was _still_ thrown by it. There was just something a bit off about the whole thing.

Sitting in Sirius' room had been the last straw. Something in James snapped. It had to give.

"It's green," James said, looking around the room.

"So is most of the house," Sirius said, as if that was somehow an explanation.

James found one of the offending crests hanging over the bed and pointed to it. "Why do you have Slytherin hangings in here?"

Sirius shut the door, "They did it before I left."

"They were that sure you would be Slytherin?" James bit back a comment about whether or not his parents had actually met him, because personally, he didn't reckon that Sirius had a Slytherin bone in his body. He wasn't ambitious; he was just good at stuff, same as James, and he didn't have to try too hard.

"Blacks go in Slytherin," Sirius said.

"Who are you then," James responded, "The Knight bus conductors?"

Sirius frowned for a moment, "Depends if he was pureblood."

James was nearly ready to smack him one, when he cracked a smile. He was such a prat. "You're a Gryffindor," he said, instead of resorting to smacking him in the hope it'd result in it knocking some sense loose. "Knew it the second I met you, didn't I?"

"Before or after Snivellus was being a prat?" Sirius asked.

Since Snivellus was always a prat, there was only one answer to that. "During. I can multitask."

Sirius snorted, and lost some of the rigid thing he'd been doing that had been setting James' teeth on edge all day. Something in him heaved a sigh of relief. For a minute there, he'd been questioning if he really knew him at all.

That might seem like a bit of an overreaction to a weird house, but it wasn't just that, it was the people at the party, it was his family. They were so stuck up. Sirius had warned him about his parents being kind of proper, and they were, the kind of people that you thought you might have to call Sir and Madame or something equally French and stuck up. He didn't think he saw neither of them smile all night. He did inquire at one point if maybe they'd been cursed to look like they've just stepped in something all the time, and Sirius had laughed and he'd practically felt Sirius' younger brother glowering a hole into the back of him.

Now him, he was a disappointment. James had come in expecting someone a lot like Sirius and found a total keener, a right creeper, he reckoned as well, likely to tattle-tale at the slightest thing. He'd introduced himself with his middle name, sat there looking at James like he'd kicked his dog or something equally awful and now he wanted vengeance for it. Except he was a tiny kid, James reckoned he had almost a head on him, looked like he'd go down with one punch. He couldn't understand how these two were brothers. Sure, but he'd always wanted a brother of his own, but if he'd had one like that, he'd have asked if siblings came with a returns policy. Pretentions, that's the word, they had lots of pretense and plenty of tions and it was awful. Even this place, his own room, it didn't seem like Sirius at all.

Of course, he could fix that, couldn't he?

"Come on, let's give the place a makeover."

Sirius looked a bit skeptical. "Do a lot of interior decorating, do you?"

So what if he got really into the makeover magazines his mum read? _Witch Weekly_ had mostly stuff about love and other _stuff_ so it was one of the few sections he didn't barf at. It wasn't like there was a bunch of kids where he lived, he'd spent a lot of time with adults growing up and he'd like to think he'd learned a thing or two. That didn't mean he could admit that, he wouldn't admit that under torture.

"Do you want to leave it all Slytherin?" He challenged, cause that was the best way to get Sirius to do something, you had to give him a challenge.

Sirius looked around the room, "Alright, then. Let's see what you can do."

James, of course, couldn't turn down a challenge either.

* * *

 _The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned._

 **July, 1972**

"Are you sure?" Mum asked him, for the hundred millionth time. She'd been dithering about writing the owl to Mr. and Mrs. Black for ages now and James was down to pleading now he was back from school. "You didn't seem to have fun at Christmas."

"That wasn't cause of Sirius, that was just cause of everything else." James promised. He still didn't know what was said between their parents when his mum had come to pick him up, but it had left his mum cross and she hadn't been all that keen on him going in the first place. He knew why; he might've been young but he did know that Sirius' parents didn't like anything muggle and his mum didn't like that, seeing as she'd grown up mostly around muggles in Chipping Sodbury before she'd married his Dad.

"If you're sure," Mum said, settling in to write.

Of course he was sure. James was always sure of everything, or he didn't do it.

It was a bit embarrassing, actually, when the moment had come, James was a bit nervous. It wasn't the first time he'd had someone over, and Remus had come for a weekend at Easter and both he and Peter were going to come later in the summer. Sirius was only coming for a weekend too, but maybe he could come again at Christmas if it went well. He was pretty sure once his parents got to know Sirius a bit, then they'd stop asking him daft questions. They just didn't know he was different yet.

He cursed himself when he heard the floo and raced downstairs at breakneck speed, coming into a skid in the front room where Sirius was standing with his father. Usually, he'd come into adults chit-chatting but that didn't seem to be the case. As the adults exchanged the pleasantries, he gave Sirius a wave, who broke into a grin that threatened to become a laugh. His Dad said something to him in a low voice, before 'excusing himself' which must be pretentious (he looked it up) people talk for 'I gotta go'.

There was an awkward beat as Sirius seemed to look around the room curiously and settle on something on the far right; to James' horror, he remembered there were some toddler pictures of him there. He'd need to ensure his silence on that as soon as possible. He took a run at him, sending them both flying off into the table to his mum calling them ridiculous ruffians and insisting Sirius at least be let to put his things into the spare room. He didn't take him to the spare room, but his own. The fort at Christmas had been rubbish, but James knew where everything was here. It was going to be a castle fort now, the envy of all blanket forts, the Supreme Blanket Fort.

By the time there were turrets to it and they were designing their own flag, it was time for dinner and the nerve wracking meeting of Dad, and Best Mate.

Dad put his hand out and Sirius, to his credit, shook it. "Thank you for having me," He said, politely.

James was trying to formulate a plan for a quietly tell him that being polite wasn't going to dispel the weird thoughts they had about him.

"We've heard a lot about you," Dad said, letting everyone take a seat at the table before he took his own. "Seems like the two of you are having fun with school."

"It's great," Sirius said, still looking a bit like he was caught doing something he wasn't meant to and not in the fun way.

"They might even learn something other than what happens in detentions," Mum added, trying (and failing) at not laughing at the two of them. As if the two of them hadn't spent most of their time in detention too. Dad got in loads of fights and mum'd started many a prank war back in their day, good for morale, she'd said.

"Schoolwork is important," Dad started.

"It's not as if you can talk!" Mum was smiling widely, as she reached over for a glass of juice. "How many detentions did you get your first term?"

"That's not the point," Dad replied, clearly trying to look annoyed and failing at that too.

They were just not good at being annoyed. Maybe when Sirius' Dad came back, they could discuss the fine art of looking as if you're trying to concentrate really hard on something and it's making you angry but he didn't think they would.

Besides, Sirius was looking at the scene curiously, so James decided he'd best fill him in. "Dad got in a lot of fights. Way more than us."

"I wouldn't call them fights, they were just disagreements that turned a little physical…." Dad said, suddenly very interested in his lamb. "I was never a pushover. Neither were you, Eff, and neither is James. I don't imagine you are either, are you?"

Sirius seemed to think about it for a moment, then puffed himself out and shook his head. "No, I'm not." He said, decisively.

"Besides, they've got Dumbledore, we had-" Uncharacteristically, Mum stopped speaking halfway through as if she suddenly remembered something.

"Dippy?" James put forth.

Mum made a strangled noise of exasperation. "Dippet!"

James shrugged, "I knew it was something like that."

As they had a habit of doing, both of his parents began speaking at once. He'd learned early how to differentiate, because usually one thing he was going to respond to and the other was just rambling.

"You would think, not only having the book but having lived across from the author your entire life, you could keep the history of Hogwarts straight in your head but I swear, if it's not a Quidditch score-" Mum went on.

"No, Dippet was still a professor then. I'm afraid we had, to date, the only Slytherin Headmaster in Black-" Dad continued.

Surprisingly, given that he'd been annoyingly quiet in front of his parents, Sirius' eyebrows sprung up so hard they should have detached and hit the roof. "You had _Phineas_?"

His tone said this was probably not something great, but honestly, James could have guessed that. Who would let a Slytherin in charge of Hogwarts? "Who's that when he's at home?" James asked.

"My Great-Great Grandfather! We've got a portrait on him on the second floor, he was the one who asked you what was on your head." Sirius said, plowing on like he wasn't really listening to himself. "You must be really old."

James cracked up as his face fell, since he must actually have listened to what he just said. Besides, he sort of remembered that portrait. He'd told him the same thing that'd crawled on his face and died and he'd gotten really annoyed. It wasn't like a normal portrait, and now he knew why.

"Two greats," Dad whistled through his teeth. He looked at mum. "That doesn't look good."

"We're older than I thought," Mum added earnestly, placing a hand to her chest.

"Sorry," Sirius mumbled into his mashed potato.

It was all James could do not to laugh at him. He gave him a sharp kick under the table instead.

"We know what age we are, lad." Dad chuckled to himself, before setting down his fork. "James, don't kick people when they haven't done anything to deserve it."

"So what's wrong with him?" James asked, not wanting things to go back to being weird again anytime soon. For half a second, Sirius had seemed like himself.

"Nothing," Sirius shrugged, but he was flushed and pushing around the food on his plate. "No worse than any other Slytherin."

"Are you the only one outside of Slytherin?" Mum asked, deciding it was time to collect the plates the way they flew off to the kitchen. He wasn't going to complain. Dessert was looong overdue.

"I'll find out in September," Sirius replied.

In all of the rush and awkwardness, James had forgotten the whole reason Sirius wasn't staying to spend time with Remus and Peter. His younger brother was turning eleven, and would then be coming to Hogwarts the next year. He knew Sirius was hoping he'd buck the usual house as well, but James himself wasn't holding out much hope. Sirius was chatty, and funny, and got really enthusiastic about everything. From his experience of Regulus, he was for sure your average Slytherin: thought they were better than everyone and everything, really ice cold and nothing like a Gryffindor at all. Maybe a really snotty Ravenclaw.

"Yes, you've a brother, don't you?" Dad said, even though his attention was being drawn to the jam rolypoly assembling itself on the table.

Sirius nodded.

"Is it just the two of you?" Mum sat down, as the custard began to swirl into the pourer.

"He's got a cousin in seventh," James interrupted. She was a right snooty cow, too.

"Three girls," Sirius said, making a face at it. Maybe he was thinking of Snooty Cissy too. "Bella and Andromeda have both left school. Then there's me, and Regulus."

"That sounds familiar," Mum mused. "I think there was someone called that when I was still at school."

"Probably," Sirius shrugged. "There's loads."

"A first year, so I don't think you'd know him." Mum said. Dad had a few years on her, so sometimes their school things overlapped but they didn't meet each other until they were both really old. Almost _thirty_.

"Doesn't ring a bell," Dad said. "Still, it'll be nice for you to have the company."

Privately, James thought the only way his brother was going to want their company was if someone took his wand out of you-know-where and he asked a passing genie for a sense of humour, but somehow he didn't that was going to be a helpful comment.

 _See mum_ , he thought. _I'm learning!_

* * *

 _You don't just want to beat a team. You want to leave a lasting impression in their minds so they never want to see your face again._

 **November,1973**

A year into what was bound to be an infamous Quidditch career at Hogwarts, and James had hit his stride as a Chaser. Sure, they'd been beaten last year, but they had a damn good team together and that dirty rotter Wright had left the year before so they wouldn't get cheated out of the championships like last year. It might be the last time, who knew what kind of team they'd have next year? They'd lose both Eoin Hughes and Mivvie Kirke next year to old age, and despite his continued poking, none of his dorm mates had decided they want to play. A spectacular betrayal, if you ask him. They came to support, so he couldn't hate them too much.

"Are you nervous?" Remus asked, when they caught up with him before the game.

"I bet you're not," Peter said.

James puffed himself out as much as he could as a lanky thirteen year old. "Nah, why would I be?" It was only Slytherin. They were all rubbish, anyway. His eyes swept over the opposing team, if you could even call them that. A bunch of idiots wearing green without the decency to be leprechauns. Then he noticed something that could probably have been small enough to be, before he realised that this was probably their new seeker and that he looked a little bit familiar.

Remus beat him to the punch. "Is that your brother?"

Sirius, irritating prick that he is, shrugged. "Probably."

"What do you mean, 'probably'?" James demanded, seeing as this was extremely pertinent information. The baby Black had tried out for Quidditch and won? What was he going to do when the quaffle came near him, duck? If it hit him, it'd probably squash him. He always looked like a decent gust of wind would knock him over, let alone a scuffle in the air.

"He said he was going to try out," Sirius said. "I guess he got it."

"He didn't tell you?" Remus asked.

"We're not what you'd call close these days," Sirius said, as he glared at the other team. James decided to join in. A little competitive glaring was right up his alley, especially if the baby Black was being a little prick.

"Why didn't you tell me?" James said without looking at him, as he was concentrating on his glare.

"'Cause I didn't know," Sirius replied.

"You knew he was trying out," James said, trying to resist looking at him.

"You're not worried, are you?" Sirius sounded more teasing about it than he liked, so James switched his glare back to him. He seemed annoyingly unfazed by it. "Don't think you can beat him?"

Of course that wasn't it! It just seemed vaguely disloyal to Sirius to completely humiliate his only sibling. "I can't go easy on him just 'cause he's _your_ brother," James grumbled.

"I didn't ask you to," Sirius said. "If you can win, go ahead."

James was aghast with betrayal. "You think I can't?"

Sirius didn't so much shrug as animatedly pull his shoulders up and down. "Dunno, you're making a fuss."

"Because he's a second-year!" James pointed irritably in the direction of the other team.

"You were a second year last year," Remus said, from behind the book he'd cracked like he always did when he wanted to ignore them but still snoop.

"Yeah, but," James frowned, "I'm really good. _Really_ good. He's not." After a beat, he asked. "Is he?"

"He's alright," Sirius said, providing absolutely no useful help whatsoever.

"He's _tiny_ ," James complained. "The wind is going to carry him down to Hogsmeade!"

Sirius snorted hard, while Peter laughed and Remus tried to hide his smile.

"He's only a bit smaller than you," Remus added, unable to keep a spark of amusement from his tone that was definitely not coming from his Defense textbook.

"He's very shorter than me," James moved his hand to his own height, and plummeted it. "I hope he enjoys being humiliated by me, because that's what's going to happen for the next five years."

Except that wasn't what happened.

Through what had to be nefarious spellwork, cheating and sheer dumb luck, _Slytherin_ won. James thundered up to them, informed them that they'd regret it and threatened to punch Sirius if he so much as said a single thing to him about afterwards. The morning would be fine for revenge. The sweetest revenge would be meeting them in the finals, so they'd need to up practices just in case someone gets cursed again. Still, the following morning, a quick colour change jinx left every member of the team - and a couple of people caught in the crossfire - wearing the winners' red and gold across their skin for the rest of the day. It only made him a little happy, but sometimes, as his dear mother would say, it's the little things that count.

* * *

 _It's not what we have, but who we have._

 **November, 1974**

"I've had it!" Sirius thundered. "I can't do it again. I did it half the bloody summer, my parents have never been so pleased, it's _disgusting!_ "

James winced as Sirius launched himself onto James' bed with a dramatic flair you could only get from him. He moved himself backwards with a sigh. He'd been serving detention and only just got back to the dorms, so he hadn't really had a chance to check the weather yet. Stretching to look at the window, sure enough, cloudy as all fuck. They'd have to start again.

"I can't do it again," Peter added miserably, shutting the door behind him since Sirius had left it open for all and sundry to listen in. "Every time I have transfiguration, I think McGonagall can see it and I end up swallowing it."

"We know," Sirius grouched.

It was hard not to be irritated by it - they'd been thwarted three months before the holidays by just that, and once before by Sirius getting into a screaming match only for him to spit out the leaf. James had managed to knock it out on the pitch as well. "If it was easy, everyone'd do it."

"It's making me feel thick," Sirius grumbled, looking at Peter. "Don't even want to know what it's doing to you if it's doing that to me."

James rolled his eyes. "We'll manage it."

"I'm starting to think this was a bloody stupid idea," Sirius decided, for what had to be the tenth time since they'd decided to become animagi.

It had been two years, now. It was a ridiculously complex spell and they were still having trouble with the first part. They'd done their research - they'd need mandrake leaves, moonlight, hawkmoths wings, dew from deep inside the forest and a death-head moth. They'd gotten just about everything else ready for it, they just needed to add the leaf (having been in their mouths for a month without being taken out under any circumstances, moon to moon) to the dew and their own hair and the moth by light of a clear full moon. But it would be worth it, James told himself. For one of their closest friends to face the nightmare of a wolf transformation every month alone was a cruel trick of fate. This would help.

Besides, it would be cool.

"We start again," James announced, and he knew, despite their whining, his friends would follow suit.

"We just have to get Sirius to, er, stop talking," Peter said, clearly going for joke and falling flat.

Reading when you could insult Sirius and have him laugh it off and when he was likely to hex you was a skill set he hadn't acquired yet. "And you to stop wetting yourself every Transfiguration lesson," Sirius responded, irritably.

"It's hard to talk with it in," Peter frowned.

"So don't talk," Sirius replied, before looking at James and succumbing to a sudden laugh. "That'd never work for you, you dunno know how to be quiet."

"I could too!" James insisted. Yes, he was a chatty person, but that was just part of his charm. He could not talk if he really put his mind to it.

"You talk in your sleep," Sirius scoffed.

"What about you?" James slung back at him. There was a challenge in the air, he could feel it coming. "Like you could stop yelling at Slytherins long enough to do it."

"I did it half the fucking summer, mate," Sirius spread his arms out. "I did it around my nut-job cousin. I'd outlast you in a heartbeat."

And thus, the challenge was issued.

The thing was, James found out pretty quickly that if he just didn't say anything, everyone started looking him at funny. By the second day, McKinnon had asked him if he was a snit with her (he wasn't), Macdonald had offered him a throat lozenge and by the third, Evans had asked if everything was alright. It was ridiculous. By the end of the first week, they'd had to call the whole thing off as a truce. He'd been asked by several professors by this point if he was feeling alright, was everything alright with parents, was he struggling with the material, was it love life stuff and finally, on Friday morning, he'd been sent by Slughorn down to the Hospital wing because he thought he'd just lost his voice. Seeing as he had to prove he hadn't, he had to break it.

Turned out that Sirius had ended up sent to McGonagall the same day to see if everything was alright, if something had happened at home, if the two of them'd had an argument. Too perceptive by far, sometimes.

"Do you reckon she saw it?" James asked, when Sirius had come round to the hospital wing as proof things were fine between the two of them.

"Nah," Sirius said, looking at him. "Can you see it?"

James shook his head. That was one upside.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Sirius said.

"What?" James sighed.

"Peter won." Sirius deflated.

" _Fuck._ This had better be worth it, I'm telling you."

James thought of the state of Remus when they'd finally been allowed to see him in the mornings, once Remus had explained that yes, they knew and wouldn't tell anyone. He'd even apologised for not being able to keep it a secret, but Dumbledore didn't seem all that annoyed about it. He'd had no idea he'd claw the shit out of himself, and had made up his mind they'd have to do something right there and then. If he never saw him struggle to get back to recovering after the injuries on top of transformations, run himself ragged to catch up on his even more missed work, collapsing under the weight of a secret alone rather than a secret shared.

Resolved, James responded to his own statement. "It'll be worth it."

* * *

 _It is a good man who stands up for his friends, but an honorable man who stands up for his enemies._

 **December, 1975**

"Where is he?"

The thing was that James was pretty sure Peter answered, but he'd developed a habit of not actually listening all that much when Peter got one of his stuttered rambles. There was a difference in tone when something was actually important and when he was actually talking to him instead of spitting out either what he reckoned James would want to hear or the same information phrased three different ways, and they'd been friends long enough to know Peter wasn't really answering him any more than it was a genuine question.

If James didn't know where Sirius had gotten to, no one did.

(With the exception of McGonagall, if she'd given him detention and he guessed it it was Family - big eff, kind of like the word that went with 'off' which should always accompany it when it came to Sirius' mad as hatters relatives - then _maybe_ the baby Black would know, but only for a minute till Sirius told James anyway.)

It was getting later, they were freezing their bollocks off and they'd lost the light. They'd decided to meet in the quad, like they'd done the last couple of times they'd done it. A night of hanging out with Remus while he was having his time of month was still a new addition to the routine. James had gotten stuck between two doors, having misjudged having antlers and door entry and Sirius had grumped on and off that he kept scraping up his hands. Peter had gotten lost in a wall. It had its teething problems. But the day one of them couldn't duck out being seen was the day they needed to retire.

Still, Sirius was _late_.

Finally, he comes skidding 'round the corner, barely managing to stop short of bowling them both over and bends over leaning his hands on his knees. He didn't look like he was dying, nor would he be here if he had detention, but they were running low on time and he didn't know how he was going to get an explanation that would satisfy. He was going to smack him one if it involved a girl.

"Sorry," Sirius wheezed, grabbing hold of James' shoulder himself. "Ran into Snivillus, living up to his name."

"You're cutting it close, you are," James told him, pulling out the cloak. They were all getting too tall for this now. It was the only real downside of what he deemed an excellent growth spurt.

"Tell Snape to be less of git then," Sirius replied, grumpily.

"We'll deal with him later," James said.

He ushered them under the cloak, before someone saw three of the most notorious pranksters that Hogwarts hallowed halls had ever seen hanging about in the quad at night and decided they must be up to something. Which they were.

"What did he do?" Peter asked, in a hushed voice.

"Oh, he thinks he's so clever," Sirius spat back with enough irritation that he was almost sure he felt a recoil go through Peter. "He says he knows our 'big secret' of where we've been heading off to the last couple of months. Turns out, all he knows is Remus and us going down by the willow."

"You hex him?" James asked.

"Nah," Sirius replied. "Just told him if he was so bloody interested, he should use the knot and go get himself killed. It's not as if anyone'd miss him, is it?"

Something in James' brain came to great, steeping stop and the rest of his body followed suit, causing Sirius to smack right into him and swear in his ear. "What?" James asked, dumbly.

"He's not going to do it," Sirius scoffed. "He hasn't got an inch of bravery in him. I was just trying to scare him off."

"It doesn't matter if he doesn't do it tonight, or next time, or brings some of his gross little friends along," James said, as his heartbeat began to pick up. "What if he _does_? That's a live werewolf!"

"I know he's thick," Sirius said, but even his voice was wavering a little. "But he's not that thick, is he? If he knows it'll kill him-"

"Because he's not going to believe you, you prick!" James said, running a hand across his face. "What'll happen to Remus if he hurts someone? They'll bloody expel him, if not arrest him!"

James expected a barrage back, Sirius to defend himself or agree with him or something, but he wasn't even looking at James now. He was looking ahead. James twisted out of the cloak to meet what he was looking at - the immobilised Whomping Willow in the distance. His stomach bottomed out and for a moment, he couldn't breathe. He didn't know what to do.

Then he did, all at once.

He knew he had to try and get everyone out of this. "Give me the cloak!"

Sirius did so, blinking at him.

"Get back up to the castle," James said, pulling the cloak over himself.

"What are you going to do?" Peter asked. "I'm going to go stop Snape from getting Remus expelled," James said, trying not to imagine that he was going to be too late. What would happen then? What would happen to _Remus_? He hated Snape, sure, but he didn't want him dead.

"Not alone!" Sirius said, hotly.

"Yes, alone," James said, in what he hoped was a tone of finality. "You don't think you've done enough?"

"But-"

"Snape might be a git," James replied, "But he doesn't deserve to die, or get scratched, or any of that shit! But while I'm standing here pissing about with you, that could be happening right now and what's it going to do to Remus in the morning?"

Sirius blanched. "I didn't think-"

"You never bloody think, do you?" James said, angrily. "You just run your mouth. One secret, and you can't keep it. Get Peter back up to the dorms before you blow our secret, since it's already too late for Remus!"

It was their first real fight. He'd known it in that moment, even if the fallout had lasted weeks and he and Remus had been on shaky ground even longer (even if Sirius probably hadn't noticed). As all best mates do, they'd had scuffles, but a real schism hit in the aftermath and couldn't give less of a shit. He loved Sirius, he was his best friend, but he had no self-control in the slightest. In that moment, the fear of the consequences overruled everything. He just wanted everyone to get out of this without getting bollocked, expelled or dead.

They'd gotten through it, their secret intact and Remus' not. Snape had been sworn to secrecy, of course, by Dumbledore himself. He'd had a bit of bollocking for running in there, he could have been attacked (it wasn't as if he could say he was an animagi then, was it?) but no one seemed more furious about having to keep Remus' secret then Snape.

By the time they came back in January, everything would be back to normal. No real damage done, not in the long run. Right?

* * *

 _A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself._

 **July, 1976**

It got warm enough in July that James could leave all his windows open and still feel too hot to sleep.

That was his story, and he was sticking to it. Whether he was working out if it would be possible to venture further into the forest without running afoul of the spiders or the centaurs was completely beside the point, because as a human wizard who could in no way in turn into a pretty brilliant looking deer, that would be foolish and dangerous and he wasn't any of those things.

Still, there was a sudden bang in the street that was loud enough that he reckoned it'd wake his mum and dad, so he probably wasn't going to get a bollocking for staying up when he wasn't meant to. Checking out the windows, the culprit was speeding away. It looked a lot like a giant streak but was probably the Knight bus given the speed, the disappearance and the fact that Sirius had skipped countries and was standing by their gate. He didn't look hurt, or like he'd just decided to come to stay because he was just sort of standing there doing nothing instead of coming to the door.

"I thought you were off getting intimately acquainted with sheep," James called down, watching as he seemed to startle out of whatever was making him stand there in the street like an idiot at midnight.

"I've heard of talking to yourself," His mum's voice carried through from the hallway, "But are you _yelling_ to yourself?"

"Was that noise you?" His dad added, still sounding sleep addled.

"No," James called back in. "It's Sirius!"

His mum poked her head around the door, hair still in her rollies and hair net and the remnants of whatever women put on their faces still making her skin gleam in the dim light. "You didn't say he was coming," she said. "It's a bit late."

"I didn't know he was," James shrugged, because while Sirius had always been a little wild and more than a little unpredictable, in doing something unpredictable like this, it seemed almost normal.

"Is everything alright?" His mum knitted her brows.

There was shuffling from the landing, so his dad must have decided to get up and see what was occurring.

"What's going on?" "Sirius is in the front garden," His mum said.

His dad stared at her, then at James. "Why is Sirius in the front garden?"

"I dunno why," James replied. The fact was, they'd spent the whole time nattering away here and he'd left him standing in the garden. It was a safe enough area, and he reckoned anyone who tried anything on the off-chance would've been in for a dog-shaped bite about them if they did, but it probably wasn't the best of manners. He poked his head back out, "Alright, Sirius?"

"Alright, James."

"James!" His dad said, tiredly.

"Hang on, mate." James said, pulling back to look at his father. He did look dead tired. He was supposed to be taking things a bit easier, retirement and all that, but he just wasn't the type. James could relate. "What?"

"You're going to wake the whole neighbourhood," his Mum responded.

"I'm not going to wake the whole neighbourhood," James scoffed. There wasn't that many close neighbours as it was. It was a smaller village, and there was probably more animals around here than people. "I'm not even being that loud!"

From outside the window, he heard Sirius add, "Yes, you are."

He poked his head out, "Traitor!"

His mum snorted, shaking her head. "For the love of Merlin, James, will you get that boy inside the house before the two of you get the MLEP called?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," his Dad said, like that wasn't a misunderstanding and they'd absolutely reimbursed Mr. Brown for his fence and apologised about the gnomes.

James waved Sirius down towards the front door, "You coming in or what?"

James made it down to the front door faster than both parents, who were making a bit of a ruckus themselves for people who'd be warning about the noise and no, he was not going to slide and break his neck, he'd gone down the banisters at Hogwarts plenty of times and he was still here, wasn't he? Of course, this meant that when Sirius was finally ushered in, instead of inquiring why he was muddy, sweat soaked and had as many as three-hairs out of the place (the most ever, the prick), his mum launched straight into that.

"You two aren't sliding down the moving staircases," His mum said, "Are you?"

Sirius looked at James, then back to his mum. "It's really more of a glide."

James nodded rapidly, "Very graceful."

"I don't think I can deal with this after midnight," His mum said, patting her chest. "Are you alright, dear? You look very flushed."

"Er, yeah," Sirius said, looking to James because Sirius never liked to openly discuss anything that bothered him publicly. Or at all, if he could get away with it.

"Why don't you go and clean up, and James will go find you something to change into?" His mum said, exchanging a look between them. "Assuming you're staying?"

"If that's alright," Sirius said, falling into an annoyingly polite tone and fixating his gaze low.

"Of course it's alright," James scoffed, giving Sirius a quick shoulder shove. Still, he waited on whatever was being communicated non verbally between James' parents to move.

The thing was, James was about ready to pull out of him what had happened the moment the parentals were out of ear-shot, but he finally got a better a look at him in the harsh bathroom light and frankly, even for Sirius on a bender, he looked rough. There were flecks of red, which could be food but could also be blood, even if there wasn't enough for it to be dangerous. There was something else too, gleaming and refracting light and he realised with a measure of embarrassment, that the reason he had been mumbly polite and fixating on the floor was probably because his eyes looked red raw, like he'd cut up a thousand onions or something even more terrible, like crying. Something was definitely up, but trying to get Sirius to talk about something when he was like that was like trying help a wounded animal, likely to bite your head off. Besides, if it were James and he'd gotten himself into that much of a tiswas, then he wouldn't want someone commenting about it, would he?

"You look like shit," James told him, instead. "Which is better'n you usually look, so dunno why I'm complaining." Sirius slipped a dirty sock off, and tossed it at him as he shot the door.

What a tosser.

(Literally.)

The thing with him and Sirius being roughly the same size (James was taller, fuck him, hair counts) was that their clothes tended to migrate together. He knew he had some things that were probably Sirius' and Sirius probably had some of his stuff in his trunk, because he couldn't imagine him taking it out round his house. Where was his stuff, though? He had his wand on him, but he didn't even see his owl.

Upon returning to his room, James wasn't surprised to find the hot chocolate. He was a bit surprised when his dad poked his head in, peering over the thick reading glasses and landed a bottle of Ogden's with two thirds out of it and put it on the dresser. It had to be a test, some kind of horrible test, didn't it? They were both underage, they were only sixteen and while it didn't stop them, this was different. "Uh, what's that?" He said dumbly.

"A couple of slugs in the hot chocolate," His father said, "Do not make yourselves sick."

"Er," James said, "We're not...of age..."

His dad looked right at him with a bemused expression. "James, I know you drink, your mother knows, your head of house knows after the last sicking up. As long as you don't over do it, a couple of slugs helps most of what ails you and makes you more prone to talking about what it doesn't solve." James didn't know what to say to that, other than that Remus had been way more sick than he had and no one had seen Peter till the next morning and that didn't seem like the thing to tell his father.

"Thanks," he said, instead. That must have been the right answer.

"Find out what's going on, come wake us up if it's going to involve a healer, law enforcement or your mother storming up to Wales, alright?"

"He's not hurt," James said, then he thought to the flecks. "Maybe some cuts?"

"There were glass shards embedded in his sleeve cuffs," his father replied, "It may just be another argument and he needed somewhere to go and calm down."

"Figures he'd need to skip a country to get away from _them_ ," James replied, hotly. His father didn't disgree. His parents didn't hold a high opinion of Sirius', even if they didn't really voice it in front of him.

There wasn't much of a conversation about it at all in the end, other than the two of them, up to all hours, with spiked hot chocolate despite the heat and talking about nothing. They'd charmed the floor to keep cool and leaned against the bed, because the Cabbage Patch had taken over the actual bed and no one wanted scratched up.

"I'm not going back," Sirius said. The thing was, though, that he'd said that before. He'd said it last year, when someone at one of these insufferable parties had talked some shit about werewolves and sterilisation, but he'd calmed down and gone home after a couple of days. He'd said it after the radio murders, when his cousin had alluded to being involved somehow and he'd thrown a gravy boat at her at dinner and shown up then. He'd said it in March, when they felt still on shaky ground after that shit with Snape, still drunk on the full moon and the freedom of it, swearing that he couldn't listen to the praise of mass murderers and sadists anymore, he was going to lose it, and he'd gotten as far as refusing to go home for the Easter holidays before his mum had come up and screamed so damn loud about how humiliating he was that James'd heard every word. He reckoned everyone else staying that holiday had too. Problem was, he always went back and James didn't really get it, he had to know he was welcome here, he had to know he didn't _have_ to go back and if he wanted to fight it, he could.

"I'm serious," Sirius added.

On reflex, James responded, "I'm James."

Sirius, quite rightly, shoved his shoulder. "Fuck off. I'm not going back."

James considered it. "What's different?"

"Nothing to go back to," Sirius said, taking a drink of what had to be stale and cold chocolate more than hot now.

James sneered, "There was before?" Sirius didn't answer. He seemed to wait a few moments before asking,

"Do you think I act differently around Regulus?" Predictably unpredictable, that's how it always went with him.

"Dunno," James said, honestly.

"What do you mean, you dunno?" Sirius demanded.

"I mean, I dunno," James said, with a laugh. "You don't talk to him round me, do you? He's too busy trying to boil my brain using just his mind when he's anywhere near me, not like we have conversations. Why?"

"It doesn't matter," Sirius said, which probably meant that it did matter. It was worse than talking to a girl sometimes. "They don't want me going back."

"To the house?" James couldn't quite bring himself to believe that. They were useless as a rule, the whole family with Sirius excluded and maybe his cousin since Sirius said she was alright or an uncle if Sirius said so, but James couldn't actually imagine them going as far as to say not to come back. Even with the disturbing memory of listening to his mental mother going off at him for all and sundry, they were still his parents and if nothing else (and most of the time, it seemed like nothing else) he did carry the name. The name seemed all they were interested in, that and the so-called pureblood.

"To Hogwarts," Sirius replied, dully.

"What?" James took to his feet in outrage. "They can't do that!"

"I'm sixteen," Sirius replied, "They can do that. They can make me stay in that horrible house, listening to them praising Death Eaters day in and day out, and having them for tea like they're not disgusting, and I can't do it, James. I've had enough." He set down the cup, and leaned back against the bed forcefully. Cabbage Patch looked up with one gleaming eye in the moonlight, then turned his furry arse to them and went back to sleep. "If I go back there, I'll kill them. I'll kill myself. Worse, I'll end up as soft in the head as my idiot brother who thinks just because he's the fucking perfect one that it'll make a difference, or as touched in the head as that old _hag_. I'm _not_ going back."

A little more convinced, James asked, "What about your brother?"

"What about him?" Sirius asked.

"He's not coming back to school?" James clarified.

"Oh no," Sirius gave a bitter bark of laughter, his voice sharp. "He was always going back, he's the good one, remember? He's _flourishing._ I'm the waste of space they don't want people look at."

The concept felt so foreign to him that James fought the urge to argue. He couldn't really imagine anyone thinking that of their kid; his own parents had wanted him for so long and when he'd finally come along, and him alone, they'd just always always talked about how lucky they were. It made him uncomfortable in a way he couldn't quite place to hear Sirius say it about himself, even repeating it. "You're not a waste," he insisted, after a moment. "You're my best mate."

There was a long moment, "Yeah, I s'pose."

"You _suppose_ ," James said, rolling his eyes. "Besides, you've got to come back to Hogwarts. Four years it's taken me to convince you to try out for Quidditch, you're not getting out of it that easy."

Sirius smiled thinly, "I said maybe."

"Maybe is basically yes," James waved him off. "It's decided, you'll stay here, we'll go back to school, you'll join the team and we'll destroy Avery and his cronies and you'll feel much better about the whole thing."

"I don't even have my broom," Sirius said, frowning.

"You want to go get it?" James said, already looking to see where his shoes are.

Sirius shook his head. "I'll deal with it."

"You want mum to go get it?" James carried on, in case maybe he didn't want to risk actually talking to nutters in person. "She would. She's been dying to hash it out with your old mum for years, but on the condition I can go and watch cause I'd put ten galleons on my mum, she's small but she's a fighter."

Sirius, as he was meant to, laughed. "It's all at Grimmauld Place," he said, "They won't even be there for another couple of weeks."

"Breaking and entering," James said, clapping his hands together. "Even better!"

* * *

 _Good friends never say goodbye, they simply say "see you soon"._

 **December, 1977**

"I don't like it."

From behind him, James felt his mum give him a wallop up his ear hole for his trouble. He tried to scowl at her, but it was never something he'd been very good at it and apparently, it wasn't going to get easier now.

"You didn't like any of them," Sirius replied.

Which was true, but it'd only been a couple of days and besides, it was only December. Sirius was being completely premature about this whole moving out business, if you'd asked him. Which he hadn't. No one had, and it was driving him mental. They'd only been back from school for three days, and today, the only day Sirius had decided to go and look at getting a new place to live. He'd decided on the third place, called James and his mum, being his mum, had wanted to come get a cheeky look at the place too. 'See if it's alright for him' supposedly, which it very much wasn't. For one thing, it was a flat. He had the money to get himself a house, preferably somewhere that wasn't London, preferably somewhere that wasn't less half an hour from the crackpots he'd grown up with but no, he'd settled for a two-bedroom flat in Camden. It made James uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't quite put his finger on, besides the fact that they still had half a year of school left and Sirius already had one foot out the door.

"Lovely space in the front room. A large window does wonders for the light," his mum was saying, tapping her foot against it. "That carpet'll need replacing. Bit funny coming in and the first doors being the loo and a bedroom, but for the space, I can see can see why you like it."

Sirius beamed, the bastard. "The kitchen's walled off by an arch."

"That will help prevent the spread when you inevitably set it on fire," his mum said, wandering off to presumably take a look.

The moment she was gone, Sirius came up and clipped him for the second time today. James clipped him back, and he huffed.

"Why are you being a prick about this?" He hissed at him.

"Am not," James said, even if he knew he might have been being a little bit of a prick about it.

"I thought you'd be made up," Sirius said, "Something that's really mine, never had that before."

"You have your room at ours too," James protested.

"I love that room," Sirius said, but he was already breaking into a smile looking around the half empty flat. "But this is my first place that's mine. It's going to be _home_ , not some fucked up relic. I can feel it, in my gut."

"Our house is home," James protested, almost because he couldn't help himself. Sirius had always said as much, that in comparison it had always felt like coming home.

"Close as anything's been," Sirius said, "But you're moving out and all. You said so, when you found a place. You're not gonna be there, are you? Why's it matter if I am?"

"Because it does," James said. Rubbish argument, sure, and given the look Sirius gave him, he knew it."Because it's been seven years, and it's always been the four of us and now what's going to happen."

All of a sudden, what was bothering him felt at the forefront of his mind. They would all leave Hogwarts in six months, into a magical world that steeped in war and less than six months ago, Godric's Hollow had burned. They'd gotten into their first Death Eater fight together, had several since, but that was alright because they'd look out for each other. The idea of the four of them scattered to the four winds made his chest feel tight. What if one of them got in trouble and the others weren't there to help? Sirius had made himself a target by leaving, Remus would be because he was a bit furry and Peter just wasn't the strongest duelist but they were his closest mates. This felt like the beginning of losing something important.

"You gonna stop coming round and insisting on making forts despite us being way too old for it?" Sirius asked.

"You won't be in the next room," James pointed out.

"There's this thing called apparition, mate," Sirius said, starting to look irritatingly amused. "I'd even link up the floo just so you can bug the shit out of me, if you want."

"It's not the same," James said. "I don't even know what's happening with Remus and Peter. do I?"

"I fully expect Moony to come round here and lecture me about my book habits like he doesn't put half of it on to seem more prefectly or Wormtail to get us all drunk enough to listen to Abba," Sirius said, as if these things were sure. Annoying prick.

"Something could happen," James said.

"If you go kicking Death Eater arses up and down the road without me, I'll break your face," Sirius shrugged. "Don't tell me you're scared."

"I'm not scared!" James said hotly. "You just can't stand the thought of not having me around," Sirius boasted. "I'm just amazing."

"You can piss off, is what you can do," James grumbled.

"I'm not the one getting all gross and sentimental," Sirius laughed, but it didn't sound malicious so James figured he wouldn't hex him for it. "It's not the end, it's just what's next."

"What's next," James repeated.

It was hard to know what would be next for any of them. Every time he thought of their group, his mates melding with Lily's to form enough of a group that they always seemed to need to squeeze in places. The thought of losing that was terrible. The thought of losing any of them was fucking terrible enough that he wanted to cling onto their dorm and never let go of it. But that wouldn't be brave, would it?

"Dunno yet," Sirius said. "But that's what makes it fun."

James tried to imagine their futures, what life would be like once the war was over, of careers, adventures, families and felt something flicker in his chest. "Yeah, it does," he admitted.

Mum came out a moment later, "Are you two done? There's really only so long I can look at four kitchen counters and pretend I'm not listening."

James shrugged, "I still don't like it."

"It doesn't like you either," Sirius said, evenly. "But given time, I'm sure you'll come around to one another."

James groaned. "This is going to be like that bloody bike all over again."

Sirius proceeded to scowl at him. "Don't talk about the love of my life like that! I don't talk about Evans like that."

James had to smack him up the head for that one. It was only fair.

* * *

 _A hero is a man who does what he can._

 **June, 1978**

In the days after their NEWTs, joy exploded in the halls of Hogwarts.

While the tension of exams had permeated the stones, it seemed the seventh years were all too happy to cling to the giddy thrill of no more exams. The wizarding world out there was in shambles, people had lost loved ones, friends, even a student or two had not made it back to school but once the exam tension had broken, it had thrived under the desire to have their last days at the school be happy ones.

James had been struggling not to think of it being the last days of all of them together. The idea of the loss of all of it had been strangling. It had felt like saying goodbye for weeks, and he knew once it was actually time to go that it would feel worse, but for now, they had no classes, no exams and the run of the castle. There was music playing almost constantly in the common room, Sirius and Marlene howling like cats and brushing off anyone trying to get them to shut up. James and Peter had taken a run down to Hogsmeade for more butterbeer than either of them could carry sensibly on Saturday, only for him to be pulled aside by Professor McGonagall the moment they got back.

He'd expected a bollocking. What he got instead was an invite to Dumbledore's own sponsored vigilante group.

If anyone had told him that's what he'd be thinking about right now, he'd have thought they were a few nuts short of a pack.

He ran into Sirius and Remus trying to trip each other up outside the common room, Remus winning by managing to get him to go down at the moment he noticed James. Followed moments later by Remus crumbling down, as Sirius kicked him hard in the shins. James couldn't help but smile at the interaction. They were obviously both in good moods to squabble about.

"Everything alright?" Sirius asked, pulling himself up without comment.

James nodded, but Sirius frowned at him. The 'I know you're full of shit' look.

The truth was that he was alright. He _wanted_ to make a difference. He wanted to stop the Death Eaters. The only thing that had given him pause was with who. When he had asked. Dumbledore had simply said they needed to use the utmost discretion and as such, he couldn't tell him who else he may have asked. James had said in return that he didn't think that he'd be able to keep such a secret from the guys, they had no real secrets between them, not anymore. He didn't think he'd be able to keep it from Lily either, but given that he'd seen her being called in after him, he didn't believe that would be a problem.

He knew there might be a problem with the others. Remus, despite everything everyone had done for him, would never fully lose the stigma of his furry little condition. There were a few werewolf related deaths making the news, and there'd been one horrible, quiet night when he'd admitted that the culprit, the one murdering little kids, had tried to kill him. They banded together over their secrets. To do otherwise seemed like betrayal. Despite that, he hoped Dumbledore would do as he always had and see past his condition and see the person. A little unsure, maybe, prone to thinking he was useless and making himself useless in response, but the Order of the Phoenix would probably help that. He was better when he had something to focus all of panic on.

Not too different from Sirius, truth be told. Sirius had his own background problems. Everyone and their mother knew that his estranged family were supporting You-Know-Who and his followers. Those close enough to Sirius himself probably knew his suspicions within his own blood. But Dumbledore (and especially McGonagall because if she weren't involved in all of this, he'd drop dead from the shock), they knew Sirius wasn't like that. They knew full well he'd fought tooth and nail for his shot at a way out, no matter the occasional linger towards the way to the dungeons. They had to know he'd fight for the right cause and there was no one in the world he could think of he'd rather have watching his back.

Maybe Lily, but for very different reasons and probably a bit lower than back.

Then Peter, who didn't have a stigma of all that but he didn't have the reputation for being the strongest wizard in the room either. That didn't mean he wasn't talented. He just didn't have a lot of confidence, and they might rib him about it but only in a friends way and no one else was allowed to. Peter could be very intuitive, he often thought of things they didn't and noticed little things that soared past other people. He'd want to make a difference too, James was sure of it.

When he made it back into the common room, he wasn't too surprised to spend the afternoon watching people get called away. Now he had an inkling of what it meant, he had to smile as they first lost McKinnon who came back with Vance in tow chittering about something ("Incursion!" Stebbins had yelled, only for McKinnon to throw one of the pillows at him.) and then, to his total lack of surprise, Remus, Peter and finally, Sirius popped back in. They'd exchanged a look, a conversation with eyebrows alone, but he felt satisfied that either Dumbledore had decided himself on the same conclusions as James himself or had taken his word to heart.

It was a comfort, to know that these would be another set of ties that bind. Peter might be going back to his mum's, Remus had ended up being asked to take the second bedroom at Sirius' (well, asked was a strong term, Sirius had told him and despite his arguments, it seemed like it'd happen) and now there would be uniting against the common enemy.

Pranking the pureblood supremacy had just been the warm-up act. They were ready to take on the real enemy, and as long as they were together, he knew they'd all be alright.


End file.
